No border crisis exists, no justification for partially shutting down government. What’s going on is a bipartisan political standoff unrelated to national security.

Trump, the GOP, and undemocratic Dems share blame. There’s plenty of it to go around in Washington, mostly on issues far more important than to build or not to build a border wall, fence, barrier, call it what you will, along the US-Mexico border, accomplishing nothing other than wasting billions of dollars if built.

The saying about when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled is relevant to the fallout from what’s going on – in its 19th day with no signs of resolution.

Hundreds of thousands of government workers with no dog in this fight are going unpaid. Around 40 million poor Americans, dependent on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aid to feed their families, are cut off from receiving food stamps they vitally need.

If shutdown continues endlessly for weeks longer, they could be cut off entirely, perhaps a motive behind preventing resolution. Social justice in America eroded markedly since the neoliberal 90s, begun by the Clinton co-presidency, continued by Bush/Cheney, Obama and Trump.

At best, America’s poor and disadvantaged will face protracted delays in receiving SNAP and other aid needed NOW.

Border crossings by undocumented aliens are way down historically. People coming are largely desperate Central American families with children – fleeing state-sponsored and gang-related violence, repression, and deep poverty for lack of jobs and the absence of even modest social justice in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and elsewhere.

Central Americans and others are coming to survive, fleeing intolerable conditions in their home countries, US-supported despotic regimes running them.

Trump refuses to sign government funding legislation without over $5 billion for a southern border wall. The GOP-controlled Senate won’t address the funding issue until the current standoff is resolved.

What’s going on and much more shows Americans are ill-governed and ill-served by the vast majority of policymakers in Washington – uncaring about their fundamental rights and welfare.

That’s the deplorable state of the nation today, things worsening over time, worse than ever under Trump, the GOP, and undemocratic Dems.

Trump’s first ever prime time Tuesday Oval Office address was an exercise in hyperbole, hysteria, and racist fear-mongering, falsely portraying desperate families as threats to US national security – aired by all broadcast and cable TV channels.

He failed to explain that most people attempting to cross America’s southern border are refugees and asylum seekers with just cause to be fleeing their home countries.

He was silent about separating children from parents, terrorizing and detaining them under harsh conditions.

The ACLU challenged him, saying “(t)he so-called border crisis is a product of Trump’s imagination and the cruelty of his DHS.”

“Border apprehensions are at some of the lowest levels in decades. Most of the people coming to our southwest border are families and children seeking asylum.”

They’re not gun or knife-toting terrorists or criminals. They’re desperate people seeking safe haven – needing help, not arrest and detention, not a border wall, a political issue, nothing else.

Homeland Security, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), funding should be sharply cut, not increased – involved in waging war on unwanted aliens of the wrong race, ethnicity, and/or religion, part of US bipartisan supported white supremacist governance.

Unwanted aliens are dehumanized, hunted down, and mistreated. ICE tactics are Gestapo-like. Neighborhoods, workplaces, and other locations are raided, along with repression along America’s southern border and brutalizing detentions.

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.

About Stephen

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967.